The parade recounting dominations and events that have shaped the island over the millennia was staged on August 26: a triumph of costumes and colors that, once again, won over tourists.
Ischia parades its thousand-year history once again. From the colonists of Magna Graecia, who founded Pithekoussai here – to the Aragonese period, from the Angevin age to the 19th century, with the costumes of the people telling the story of peasant and seafaring life.
The historical procession of St. Alexander never disappoints. And once again this year, moving from the village of Ischia Ponte to the little gem set a few meters from the harbor, among wings of crowds enraptured by a kaleidoscope of colors, smiles and stories, the event proved to be among the most appreciated of the entire summer program.
Able to offer tourists a festive anthology of the events that have characterized the island and the characters that have marked its history, from the Spanish condottiere Ferrante d’Avalos, who took the poetess Vittoria Colonna in marriage, to the antipope Baldassarre Cossa, to the legendary Ferdinand II of Bourbon, the deus ex machina of the historic opening of the port, formerly the lake, which on September 17 will give rise to a new, unmissable re-enactment.
Thus, in period costumes, Ischitans and guests paraded, each proud to represent a piece of what the island has represented and represents, a small navel of the world. And again: flag-wavers, horses, falconers with owls and eagles made up a long torpedo that wound through the streets of downtown Ischia, within smartphone reach for tourists evidently captivated by such a triumph of beauty.
Directed by the Municipality of Ischia and the Pro Sant’Alessandro Association, which has always curated the event through the passionate dedication of Franco Napoleone, the procession once again-it was the 40th edition-exalted the richness of Ischia’s histories, the dominations that have succeeded one another, the rituals and myths that have profoundly marked it, material and immaterial legacies that continue to tell its story. And they will not stop doing so.
